Home » Latest » Outdoors » Catching a Fish with the Bushcraft Fishing Rod

Catching a Fish with the Bushcraft Fishing Rod

4

InfoSearched 142 0 Outdoors

8.9

SaveSavedRemoved 0

Greg Ovens heads back into the Canadian Rockies to finish a job he started on Day 14.

Months after wrapping the 30 Day Survival Challenge with fellow bushcrafter Zachary Fowler, Greg Ovens hikes back into the same stretch of Rocky Mountain wilderness that hosted the pair’s month-long ordeal. His target this time is narrower and more personal: fix the handmade fishing rod he and Fowler rigged up on Day 14 of the challenge, and actually land a fish with it. Along the way he swings by the elevated tree fort hammocking platforms the two built to sleep off the cold ground, and the mountain weather makes sure the return trip isn’t a victory lap.

• Ovens returns to the exact Rocky Mountain site of the 30 Day Survival Challenge he completed with Zachary Fowler, revisiting the tree fort hammocking platforms they built to sleep above the terrain.
• The central task is reworking the bushcraft fishing rod originally built on Day 14 of the 30-day challenge, after the natural rig runs into an unexpected setback.
• Despite the technical problems with the rod and rough Rocky Mountain weather, Ovens successfully catches a fish using the improved build.

Back at the Tree Fort

The hammocking platforms Ovens and Fowler lashed together during the challenge were built to solve a basic survival problem: cold, uneven mountain ground makes sleeping on the earth miserable and dangerous over a full month. Elevating themselves off the terrain in hammocks slung between trees kept them drier and warmer through the original 30-day stretch. Walking back into that same camp, Ovens finds the structures still standing, a physical record of the work that got them through the challenge, and spends time reflecting on what the two of them pulled off there.

Fixing a Day 14 Design Flaw

The bushcraft fishing rod at the center of this trip isn’t a new build — it’s a second pass at the rig Ovens and Fowler first put together on Day 14 of the original challenge, using nothing but a cut branch, natural cordage, and an improvised hook. Ovens sets out to modify and improve that original design, tightening up whatever kept it from performing the first time around. True to bushcraft form, the fix doesn’t go smoothly: he runs into an unexpected setback with the rig mid-attempt, the kind of on-the-fly problem that separates a working survival tool from a piece of decorative branchwork.

The rod that failed him on Day 14 finally earns its keep — right after it nearly falls apart again.

Landing the Fish

After sorting out the rig’s problem, Ovens gets the modified rod back in the mountain water and eventually hooks and lands a fish — closing the loop on a build that didn’t get the job done during the original 30-day run. It’s a small, concrete payoff, but it’s the whole point of the trip: proving out a fix to a piece of gear that once let him down when the stakes were higher. Viewers who’ve followed his bushcraft catalog, including builds like Amazing Bushcraft Tent made from Plastic Wrap!, will recognize the same trial-and-error approach here — build it, break it, fix it, try again.

Rocky Mountain Weather Doesn’t Cooperate

Even with the fishing sorted, the Rockies don’t make the return trip easy. Ovens has to work through harsh mountain conditions on-site, the same kind of exposure that made the original 30-day challenge with Fowler so grueling in the first place. It’s a reminder that revisiting an old camp doesn’t mean revisiting easier terrain — the weather that shaped the original build, including the shelters detailed in projects like Iron Age Bushcraft Build – Roof Building in Soaking Rain: DODGY STUFF!, hasn’t softened at all.

Ovens leaves the site with the rod problem solved and a fish to show for it, but the tree fort platforms stay put in the Rockies, still standing from the original 30-day run — which means there’s nothing stopping him from hiking back in for round three whenever the next idea needs testing.